Enterprise
System Planning: Using tomorrows technologies on yesterdays equipment.

by Ted Vukelich

"Sir, we need to start formulating a plan to
replace our desktops every two years to stay poised for rapid growth and
expansion."

Three years ago you would receive praise for thinking
ahead and taking the initiative to stay ahead of the "IT
game". But in today's world of application integration and online
computing, this statement will make you look bad real quick. Not only
must we consider how to add computing tools to our company's arsenal, we
must find ways to cut costs and increase our existing systems longevity.

Ask any experienced MCP and they will tell you that
they are often asked to contribute in customer system reviews and make
recommendations on how to use existing system hardware and software with
new technologies. This usually amounts to figuring out how to use system
intensive applications on outdated machines. We are constantly asked,
for example, how do we make a system intensive application such as SQL
run on our 486's. Until recently, the honest answer would have been,
"You don't". But with an emerging technology known as
server-based computing, new applications can be easily deployed on these
older systems, saving the customer money, and administrators needless
headaches.

In the past it was standard to say that upgrading our
desktops would increase employee performance by allowing them to work
faster and with less "glitches". And though this still holds
true, in today's world of mixed operating systems and mission critical
software, many companies are turning to the server-based computing model
to plan their long term IT strategy. As MCP's, we are expected to be
knowledgeable about nearly all of today's technologies and be able to
make recommendations on them. Many MCP's have asked me how to handle a
situation where there is a need for intensive applications to run on
subpar systems. As an MCSE and support engineer for a company who
specialized in Server Based Computing products, I have seen first hand
the amount of time both client and administrators have saved
implementing this model. The key now is for all of us to atleast be
knowledgeable of what's out there to better serve our customer needs.

Though server based computing has been around for some
time, we are just recently seeing products that truly leverage the
network model in a manner that reduces costs, saves time, and provides a
competititve advatage. Instead of having your IT staff roll out
applications to your users by going around to every office PC and
installing them, we can now install a piece of software one time and
make it available to our entire enterprise with a few mouse clicks. Not
only can we save precious dollars, but we can also implement a long-term
strategy that isn't dependent on replacing all hardware with the latest
"fat client".

So what do we need to implement this, and how does it
really work? The good news is that we can switch to this network model
painlessly and can even use what we already have. A true server based
network works like this. Imagine all of your resources being on your
server, with virtually nothing on end-user desktops. Your desktops
connect to your server and are presented with a familiar desktop.
However, since all of your applications are on the server, the only
bandwidth sent across your network are keystrokes and mouse clicks.
Granted, your server has to be able to handle this load. But if you use
a product such as Citrix's MetaFrame, you can implement this strategy
easily while leveraging your existing infastructure.

For a company with hundreds of workstations and
critical computing needs, this can save thousands of hours while
optimizing your current resources. By not being dependent on our current
workstations for future growth, we can be better positioned for rapid
growth and change within the business environment. This will allow a
company to stay on top of technological advances and not be left behind
while competitors move forward.

ATTENTION MCP'S: YOU
CAN DO THIS!

O.K., this all sounds great, but can it be implemented
and really deliver what the customer expects? Yes, it can, if you are
aware of the existing resources to make it happen. The first question
you need to address is: Will the model be feasible for my client? If
you're in an office of four machines, probably not. However, if your
office is planning on growing at a fast pace, it is imperative that the
computer system be able to grow as well. If we spend all of time setting
up bigger and better workstations, it uses up time we could be using for
network optimization or something else that will make us shine.

Lets take a company with over 10,000 users. It is no
longer feasible for a company that large to constantly be faced with
upgrading each desktop with the latest software release or hardware
driver. They must be able to make rapid changes to their entire network
quickly and without problems. With a product such as MetaFrame, an
administrator can simply install the needed application one time and
have their users connect to the application on that server. This would
save costs in the short term as well as allow them to grow using their
existing infrastructure.

The beauty of all of this is even though the
administrator is able to "lock down" the production
environment people connect to, users can still maintain control of their
local machines if there is a need to. Also, since everything is on the
server there is no need to have a "beefed-up" desktop machine.
The only true function of the client device is to send keystrokes to the
session on the server that you are attached to. Citrix's MetaFrame
product, which runs on top of Microsoft's Terminal Server, can be used
with most client operating systems. This alleviates the need to change
operating systems in order to meet your applications needs. It also
offers users the ease of a windows interface no matter what operating
system they are connecting from.

THE MEAT: METAFRAME

So what are the ins and outs for us to worry about? So
good of you to ask! First, Citrix MetaFrame, in conjunction with
Microsoft's Terminal Server, makes our job 100% easier by allowing
seamless integration of different client operating systems. MetaFrame is
installed on the server, and from there you can "push" out the
client software from the server. These clients include all Windows
clients as well as Linux, Unix, Macintosh, and JAVA just to name a few.

MetaFrame allows for a user to either connect to a
pre-configured desktop or to a published application. What that means is
you can set up separate desktops for your different departments. For
example, the marketing dept. can connect to the marketing desktop while
the engineering division can connect to a development desktop that
doesn't have the marketing applications on it. You can make these
desktops available across subnets as well as for remote users. This is
ideal for sales people who are desperate for system access but still
have a P100 laptop.

As for day to day administration, MetaFrame allows you
to control what a user sees from the server. This makes going to a
user's desktop to make a change in his wallpaper a thing of the past. If
a user needs an application, you can publish it to his server desktop or
set him up to connect just to that application. There are also utilities
for load balancing across multiple servers as well as installation add
ons to assist in rolling out an application across multiple servers.

THE CUSTOMER IS WHO
REALLY WINS

There have been many times when clients have asked me
how much of my time is spent on client side issues. The answer usually
ranges anywhere from 20-40%. Almost all of this is due to errors that
stem from the user having too much control or access to the system. Even
a company with just 50 users can end up paying thousands of dollars a
month which go to correcting user mistakes. NT does offer significant
ways to alleviate these mistakes using system policies. But in an
enterprise environment these policies do not work for everything. With
MetaFrame, we have control of the actual desktop that a user sees when
they connect. We can control what applications are used for the
production environment while still letting the user have access to their
local settings.

Another benefit of MetaFrame is that users can connect
to any pre-configured desktop that they have rights to. This is
imperative for users who need to connect to different application sets.
Instead of the traditional model that causes users to hop from PC to PC
in order to gain access to these applications, the server-based model
allows applications to run independent of what's installed on the
desktop. And no matter what the speed of the users desktop is, they can
still run these applications efficiently.

REMOTE USERS CAN
CONNECT TO!

In the past remote users have usually been inhibited
by slow connections, limited access, and the lack of powerful laptops.
With MetaFrame, even remote users can connect to a desktop or published
application. This is a huge benefit because it allows mobile users
seamless access to all of the applications they have at the office.

As more companies turn to the web for remote access
solutions, it is important that their networks leverage the Web to give
remote users all of the resources available at the office. With
MetaFrame, administrators can easily configure web pages to have links
to applications that a user can access directly through a web browser.
In the Published Application Manager utility, there is a feature that
allows administrators to configure an application to be accesses this
way. The software walks you through this step by step using a graphical
tool where you can specify exact settings for the application to run
with.

THE FUTURE

As companies continue to grow at rapid paces, the need
for scalable computer systems will be imperative for survival. Replacing
desktops and upgrading software on a user level will become a thing of
the past. There will be no need to replace existing platforms on the
client side if we can leverage our servers to perform the bulk of the
work. With the explosion of e-commerce and Internet business systems,
our systems must be able to integrate with one another for data sharing
and transaction processing.

In the future we can expect an increased need to share
internal information with our business partners. This will become
increasingly important with the infusion of inter-linked business
systems that require access to several data resources. To accomplish
this under the traditional networking model can take considerable time
and unnecessary legwork for an IT dept. With a server-based computing
model, IT departments can give administrators central control over data
warehouses, allowing them to make changes seamlessly across multiple
locations.

Though we will continue to see "power
desktops" that can do more things, it is imperative that we
remember that the backbone of our network is the server and we must
allow for it to be scalable to fit our business needs. Warehousing our
information in a way it can be accessed by differing operating systems
is the future and many large companies have already adopted the
strategy.

The Published Application utility
allows us to specify where we wan the application to reside and also
provides web publishing tools.

MetaFrame gives users the ability to
connect to different desktops, saving us configuration time